O.vulgaris

[Kharn]

Octopus cyanea? If so, you are lucky, they are active during the day

Don't these get quite large though... ?

 

[DWhatley]

I have seen dozens of photos/videos but have not yet seen one in person. With a big enough tank, I know I would love to keep one (yours may be too small but I believe Roy has kept them in lab tanks that may not be larger). They are quite the wanderer so I don't know how well the acclimate to aquariums. The Tentacles exhibit in Monterey (also see the Monterey O. cyanea blurb) has them on display and I am told they display quite well. Really beautiful animal. I wish our local aquarium would keep them instead of/in addition to the GPOs.

Here is one of @Nick Hopes clips for some nice action and Googling Cyanea will produce quite a bit of info.

@Neogonodactylus has a few posts about them that may be helpful:
Cyanea-Shooting for need to know facts.
and this one that talks about tank size:
Octopus Cyanea 55 gal???
and this one about the difficulty of keeping them:
O. Cyanea vs O. Rubescens

You said, was. Did it escape or just not acclimate? I am guessing the former as they are pretty hardy.

 

[Kharn]

I have seen dozens of photos/videos but have not yet seen one in person. With a big enough tank, I know I would love to keep one (yours may be too small but I believe Roy has kept them in lab tanks that may not be larger). They are quite the wanderer so I don't know how well the acclimate to aquariums. The Tentacles exhibit in Monterey (also see the Monterey O. cyanea blurb) has them on display and I am told they display quite well. Really beautiful animal. I wish our local aquarium would keep them instead of/in addition to the GPOs.

Here is one of @Nick Hopes clips for some nice action and Googling Cyanea will produce quite a bit of info.

@Neogonodactylus has a few posts about them that may be helpful:
Cyanea-Shooting for need to know facts.
and this one that talks about tank size:
Octopus Cyanea 55 gal???
and this one about the difficulty of keeping them:
O. Cyanea vs O. Rubescens

You said, was. Did it escape or just not acclimate? I am guessing the former as they are pretty hardy.

Thanks for all the information!

Difficulty wise I throw all Octos into the same bucket and in the end 'over compensate' the system the octo is on has a 72" tall LifeReef Skimmer attached, rated at a nearly 10x the systems volume.

No the little one didn't escape...nor did it pass away from acclimation...I'm not going to get into it but rest assured this little octopus was NOT intended to become my 'display' animal.

I know people can pick and choose which species they want etc. just like with my Stomatopods, however just like with my Stomatopods picking and choosing will only lead to a very long wait so....I simply take what I can when it appears, just like my Stomatopods.

The only thing I wouldn't want to buy is a small "species" (blue rings are not only obviously small but obviously avoided), whilst this little fella would of grown up to be a much larger individual, the period between then would of made it all but impossible to contain...even if it was in a container inside a tank, something in that tank would....come knocking...

Most of the Octopus I see are either golf ball to tennis ball size mantle with the latter being the size I will likely be getting upfront.

This tiny one was a little larger then my thumbnail or a small marble sized mantle.

I really love Stomatopods but the thing about them is that I already know exactly how things are going to 'pan out' when it comes to the rebuild, the Octo is so new and fresh its giving me the whole "nooby goosebumps"

 

[DWhatley]

Actually, in the US we don't get to pick and choose much and just enjoy whatever comes in the box of chocolates that show up at our door step. It is sad that this little one was not for the display as it is kind of a special species and almost impossible to get here.

 

[Kharn]

That's the way it works though

What you have we don't and what we have you don't
What's common 'here' can be rare 'there', etc.

I try not to get so attached to my individuals on the simple grounds that getting to attached only leads to bad things...when the time comes.

Recently lost the male of a "pair" of Small Smasher stomatopods, G.graphurus I had them for almost 5years together and whilst this is very abnormal since they should of tried to kill each other but no visible damage or aggression, however such a long period and being in a pair and noticing the females change of attitude since the males departure has all left me equally sad.

This was 1 reason why I don't have 30 Cephs at the moment the other reason being the cephs need more care for both tank make & overall filtration requirements.

 

[DWhatley]

New video from the Tentacles exhibit just happens to show their cyanea.

 

[Kharn]

The one thing I do like about Cyanea is that it's definitely a 'Day' octopus hence its common name .

I'd hate to have my tank setup all beautifully with coral etc. only to never seen the Octo due to it being nocturnal species...

 

[DWhatley]

IME, all (granted my species count is limited) very young octopuses will stay hidden during the day until they are somewhere around 4 months old. I suspect that is when they are sexually mature and large enough to become predator vs prey. The more we study them the more we discover that many (but not all) nocturnals will forage (some) during the day and can learn feeding time but it does take work and patience. The Gloomy's we saw both in Port MacQuarie and Coffs were out during the day and vulgaris is known to interact with divers (ours, LittleBit, was active early evening as was el Diablo, kept by @Lmecher-both Caribbean). Our local dwarfs and the Indonesian (and likely local to you) Macropus stay nocturnal. The mercatoris (US dwarf but may be found elsewhere) were not day active but would come out around 11:00, the Macropuses remain very nocturnal (very interactive but only at 3:00 AM ). I don't know if O. cyanea forages at all at night but I would expect it might. It will be interesting to see what you observe as you start keeping them as display animals. I will also be interested to see how you personally engage with them.

 

[Kharn]

This may or may not sound "extreme" but one of the things I am very very interested in ATTEMPTING, is simply to try and lure the animal not necessarily ALL the way out of the tank but like 1 tentacle, to reach out and grab food from my hand.

I'm extremely interactive with my Stomatopods ALL of them, in fact with these many tanks being built + the Octopus tank +.... there is another "off shoot" tank but it will REMAIN dry for most of the time....its only a small typical 2ft but inside is neat small brackets made from green low gloss acrylic, the brackets hold in place the exact same green low gloss acrylic sheets which can cover all the sides if all 4 pieces of Acrylic are inserted.

The aim ?

Aquarium Green Screen ....

I want to see my giant spearer emerge from an erupting Volcano
I want to remove and replace the aliens in an invasion with my Stomatopods
I want to see my giant smasher level a tank

I've been doing LOADS of video work over the years based around my Aquariums and the biggest project I ever did which I couldn't finish was a COMPLETE remake of the 2hr long 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes', however since I didn't know how to do animations back then, the entire film was an X amount of screenshots taken at 3-5sec intervals throughout the entire film, then all the sound effects etc. matched up afterwards.

Took me about a year, never finished, each edited picture was nearly a GB of space...I ran out of space in the end and I have 4TB.

 

[DWhatley]

This may or may not sound "extreme" but one of the things I am very very interested in ATTEMPTING, is simply to try and lure the animal not necessarily ALL the way out of the tank but like 1 tentacle, to reach out and grab food from my hand.

Something like this perhaps

There are numerous others but I remembered a way to search that one. With an active/interactive animal the goal often becomes to stop them from doing that once they are very familiar with their keepers. However, each has its own personality and some never become that bold. The ones that do need an extra secure lid and don't turn your back with it open. Another of the animals I kept, exited the right side of the tank while I was cleaning the left and we had a merry chase up a wall.

 

[Kharn]

Hard to tell what to expect since I have never kept one long term but I do have in my mind what I would like to experience

I am worried though about species, seems to me there is only small octopus or very large octopus species out there cyanea being in the very large large. (as far as for aquariums go).

 

[Kharn]

Should mention that I "RE"-purchased 'Cephalopods: Octopuses and Cuttlefish for the Home Aquarium', on the simple grounds that I purchased it many years ago I think when it was first released as it times in with when I first joined the forums, but have long since lost my original one having said that this one incoming on Monday will be severely cherished.... considering the inhabitant soon to come.

 

[DWhatley]

I'm thinking the Gloomy is going to be your most logical choice. If the ones I saw and the one @haggs kept are typical of the area (it does appear that there is a bit of dwarfism when octopuses are placed in an aquarium at a young age - anecdotal only but observed by several, including me). Haggs has several shallow water in situ encounters and they seem to tend to be curious about humans (albeit he does bring food when he visits them). He tells a story about someone else snorkeling and complaining that an octopus kept following him around in an area Haggs had been regularly visiting to play with one specific animal.

@Nancy will be delighted you repurchased her book

 

[Kharn]

The Book is a necessity in my view, their so limited in quantity (as in ceph information for aquariums) even if the information is downloadable and what not, I still like that physical book for times I go away etc. Books do not need batteries I'm in the process of buying around 2 dozen GOOD books from Nudis & Nem Fish to Growing Plankton or Breeding Sea Horses or cultivating & harvesting aqua cultured coral.

I'm getting a lot of tanks....so it makes sense to have back ups if my original plan fails with the Stomatopods and my passion for sea life is pritty much extendable to anything in the realm of the ocean, but i do love my Stomatopods & Cephalopods.

I'm really not sure which species of Octo I'll be able to get yet, as some said the last was a Cyaena I need to get back to one of my mates that gets them in all the time and snap pics of all he has at 1 time so I can get some I.D.'s happening and know what's local.